Photohop Tip of the Week #10: Sharpening - part 2

This week I will explain High Pass Sharpening. This type of sharpening is hidden in Photoshop - as it is not under the Filter - Sharpen area. You will want to do this at the end of your workflow, just before saving.

1st step - make a duplicate copy of your image - the shortcut for this is CTRL (Cmd) and the "J."

Next step - change the blending mode to Overlay. If you are not familiar with blending modes, please see that tutorial I did with screen shots.

To find high pass, you will go under Filter - Other (almost all the way at the bottom of the filter menu). Then slide to High Pass. A dialog box will come up where you can change the amount. Basically you want to have the gray preview look like a faint outline. If it is too thick, it will be oversharpened. Here is what I mean:



If you want to use this as selective sharpening, that you can add a layer mask. I will explain masking in a future lesson. Stay tuned for more sharpening tips in the upcoming weeks. As you experiment, you will find that you will have favorites and that you may like certain methods for certain photos and not others.